OTTAWA - The road to a reduction in hockey's devastating concussions may well run through Saint-Jerome, Quebec, a small town 45 minutes northeast of Montreal. There, more than 100 researchers and designers at Bauer Hockey have spent the last 2 1/2 years dedicated to improving their helmets.
On Friday in Ottawa, Claude Giroux helped represent Bauer's launch of the new Re-Akt helmet. For Giroux, the project hits home because he sat out four games last month with his second career concussion.
Giroux is among 72 NHL players to sit out with a concussion during the first half of the season. The Flyers account for nearly 9 percent of all cases with six such injuries, well above the average of 2.4 players per team.
In fact, James van Riemsdyk and Danny Briere returned to practice yesterday for the first time in nearly a week-and-a-half, as they continue to battle their chronic symptoms. Both players left the ice before participating in hitting drills. Chris Pronger is out for the rest of the season with concussion-like symptoms.
"It's been a pretty big problem," Giroux said. "Just on our team alone, we had six guys that have had concussions this year. It's good to see guys like Bauer try and prevent that. Any time I can try to prevent those kind of hits, it's good so that I don't have to think about [my equipment]."
Bauer president and CEO Kevin Davis was quick to point out that his revolutionary new technology, which "simply does not exist in any other ice-hockey product in the world," will never be able to fully prevent concussions.
"As you know, it is very difficult to get experts in any field to agree on anything," Davis said. "But the one thing medical experts do agree on is that one helmet will never prevent concussions. It's not a concussion-proof helmet, because there is no such thing as a concussion-proof helmet."
For years, the hockey equipment makers have been held to lame certification standards in the United States, Canada and Europe that require helmets to only reduce risk of localized injuries like lacerations, bruises and skull fractures. Bauer, which supplies helmets to 44 percent of NHL players, took it one step further.
Working with Dr. Mark Lovell, the retired founder of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center sports medicine concussion program, which diagnosed Pronger in November, the helmet combines the latest medical, biomechanical and materials research that sets a new bar for safety.
